Yes, in covering the ban in Quebec, the writer begins and ends with the difficulties one Muslim woman there has had because she veils. UD looks forward to the day when at least a few writers covering burqa and/or hijab bans will bookend their articles with arguments that some forms of veiling represent “an affront to Muslim women.” Or begin by noting the women of Iran and Saudi Arabia who are organizing, at great personal risk, to rid themselves of veils. Or how about bookending articles with comments from Frenchwomen who used to veil and now don’t (because it’s illegal), and who report feeling as if they have been freed from prison.

But this is only a quibble. UD is actually thrilled by this article, because it’s yet another indication that under the pressure of rapidly globalizing burqa bans in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, more and more journalists are finally approaching the subject with a sense of balance. Kestler-D’Amours acknowledges up front the popularity of veiling bans in Quebec; she quotes generously from government officials making the case for integration, and at no point calls anyone in favor of bans islamophobic. She is, in short, even-handed; like most rational people reporting on the subject, she has surveyed the spectacular majorities for banning in most countries of the world (here’s an example, from one of Europe’s holdouts), and, whatever her personal views, has accepted this as a reality to be taken seriously.

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Indeed it’s time opponents of veil bans (which means virtually all journalists) grew up and stopped with the nahnahnah islamophobe business. The numbers (over 80% of the French supported the ban; over 70% of Germans would support one) and the laws are against them; it’s getting worse every day; and the only sensible route, it seems to ol’ UD, is for people writing about bans to make an effort to put themselves inside the heads not merely of people who want to wear veils, but also of people who object to them. In the immortal words of the immortal: You know something’s happening but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?

A sentence that made UD laugh.

I was the man; I kept my underpants on; I was there.

I am a camera.

I came; I saw; I …

Enough already! What matters is, in those days, if you didn’t know Trump and you didn’t know Epstein, you were a nobody — and Harvard University’s most famous emeritus has never been a nobody. The recent tragic, McCarthyite attempt to make me a nobody I spun around into major personal publicity.

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In those days I followed around pretty close to Epstein, yeah… Just watching! Totally keeping my underpants on, but always in a corner somewhere observing like Boswell to his uh Johnson and look don’t tell me Life of Samuel Johnson wouldn’t have been a shitload more readable if he’d had the kind of access I had to Jeffrey.

So just to get this series started: The Italian. THE ITALIAN. Since she’s already spilled the beans, I can add what I saw.

She was 21 then – way too old for Epstein, but maybe it was a slow day for him because just as she describes it her modeling agent sent her there she thought for work (not sex work) and she comes into the room – I’m in the corner reading Baby’s Bris and first it looks like he’s interviewing her and then he takes all his clothes off! He lies down on the massage table and hands her a vibrator! I’m being very quiet and wondering does he want to watch her use it on herself or is she supposed to… I don’t know… vibrate him? But these idle thoughts were suddenly interrupted when she takes the thing, looks kind of confused, and throws it at him!

In her account, she then blacks out for awhile and when she comes to she runs out of the room and out of the mansion… So what happened while she was blacked out was Epstein sighs, lowers the vibrator to the floor, grabs his cell phone and calls LARRY SUMMERS to make final arrangements about a Harvard science conference he was sponsoring on Pedophile Island! I had to admire the guy. From one to the other like that.

The Italian chick is gone, he’s finished the call, and here’s Epstein still buck naked but with an ex-erection. “Larry wants me to put my name on another institute at Harvard,” he said, “but I hesitate.”

“Why, Jeffrey?”

One of his fingers moved along his chiseled cheekbone.

“It makes me feel old.”

UD would like to know who this pathetic, contemptible person is. Forbes has of course pulled the article; but how many other Forbes articles are lies issued under the names of people willing to sell out their bylines for – in this case – six hundred bucks from a sex convict?

Forbes‘ famously clever motto is Capitalist Tool – but until now I didn’t think I was supposed to take it literally.

***********

Oh wait. It’s apparently Drew Hendricks! Silly UD; all I had to do was go to the 404 page and read the url. LOL. More laughs here.

Sing it.

**********

His friend Ghislaine

Is talking to the men.

His friend Ghislaine

Wants to avoid the pen.

And where’s that nasty pen?

Darkest Tenn.! Darkest Tenn.!

And if you are Ghislaine

What then? What then?

… In Hartford, Harrington, and Hampshire

Sex trafficking hardly ever happens…

His friend Ghislaine…

Again, hurray. More and more often, as UD has been noting here, articles about various forms of resistance to women who veil dedicate at least a few sentences to the possibility that this resistance is not islamophobic.

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The term Islamophobia is … used to silence discussion on issues like the niqab – despite the fact that its use is hotly debated by Muslims around the world. Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have all passed various laws opposing the wearing of garments like the burqa and niqab. These bans are often motivated by security concerns, but they also make it clear that face-covering is not a central practice in Islam. These nations see the niqab as deeply divisive, not only in Western societies, but in their own Muslim-majority societies too.

But rather than argue its case, groups like the Muslim Council of Britain seek to shut down debate altogether. By painting arguments like mine as bigoted and beyond-the-pale, they aim to wrest control of the conversation in favour of another view: that Muslims are perennially demonised and objectified by the very same societies, and media outlets, which allow us to freely express our views.

  Qanta Ahmed

Good. Because it’s really hard to rhyme “Acosta.”

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OTOH. UD thinks we’re moving to Caligula too fast. It’s possible Epstein will bring down the presidency or screw up re-election, but you’ve got to pace these things, and it’s only counterproductive to go to Caligula at this point.

Acosta Resigned. The Caligula Administration Lives On.

Thus sprachs Michelle Goldberg’s headline in the NYT, but UD needs to insist that however “depraved” (Goldberg’s word, and I’m fine with it) this administration is, until it forces every woman on the White House staff to strip and prostitute herself with a stallion in the Oval Office, it’s not really in Caligula’s league. Rather, if you want to characterize what Trump has brought into the White House, go here, to a 2014 secret party of the one percenter boys; or (in its Early Years manifestation), recall the Duke lacrosse boys ordering strippers in for the evening. This isn’t the culture of Caligula; it’s about money crimes, woman abuse, and drinking. The only two obviously crazy people in this world are super-sanctimonious, totally blind VP Pence, and I Kept my Underpants On, Mommy! Alan Dershowitz. Neither seems capable of Caligulan behavior, but both are certainly as batty as the “little boot”; and while the unhinged Dershowitz is well on his way to permanent nervous breakdown, we do need to worry about Mad Mike assuming the throne.

Anyway, all UD is saying is cool your jets. All things come to those who wait.

Here she is on the runway: Alan Dershowitz’s massazhistka.

And not only that! “I kept my underwear on.”

‘Jeffrey Epstein’s attorneys submitted a bail package proposal on Thursday in which he volunteered to go under house arrest at his Manhattan mansion—with a “trustee” who would live with him and make sure he doesn’t break any rules. [Finally a chance to get to know Ghislaine!] … [If] he’s released and put on home confinement, he would agree to wear a GPS tracking device on his ankle, install surveillance cameras, and ground his jet. [Stands for Girls Prepube Essent!]’

The adventures of Leniency Alec

Are now looking downright vandalic:

From Epstein’s erections

To child-sex projections

The theme’s become totally phallic.

… as the old saying goes – cuz you always need a bottom… If you’re Alabam, you thank God that at least you’re always one step up from Mississippi in all the state rankings cuz for sure Mississippi will always be dead last…

And ah say ah say this here Mississippi politician won’t let women interview him lessn they have a male chaperone which is soooooo Saudi it gets me all excited like.

Survey: Nearly Half of Students Distracted by Technology

Also pear of legs and currant of electricity.

Fran Lebowitz came to mind as UD read David A. Graham on the long, lucrative, openly illicit careers of Manafort, Epstein, Michael Cohen, Elliott Broidy, Harvey Weinstein… He could have thrown in Steven A. Cohen, the most prominent among thousands of insider traders, etc., etc. The point is that the world is full of billionaire thieves – and worse – who either totally get away with it, or get away with it for a long time. It’s basic; it’s structural; it’s Welcome to Our World. As long as a slave class of Alex Acostas and Alan Dershowitzes (Dershowitz, who kept naughty Claus von Bulow in circulation, continues to insist on the innocence of his friend and client Jeffrey Epstein) exists, these men will be fine. (Graydon Carter: Come on down!)

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Fine? Better than fine.

Consider 1989, the year that the junk-bond king Michael Milken was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud, and the year that five teenagers of color were indicted for the rape of a woman in Central Park. Ultimately, Milken served just two years; the so-called Central Park Five served five to 15 years apiece for a crime that, it turns out, none of them committed. But even that wide gap understates the disparate justice typically available in the system. Milken’s case was unusual because it was an instance of white-collar crime that actually got prosecuted. Meanwhile, a noisy chorus was demanding that prosecutors throw the book at the Central Park Five—including Donald Trump, who took out ads in all four leading New York papers calling for the boys’ execution.

And where is Milken today? His name emblazons a school of public health, one of whose components is the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness.